Ke mult ert koneiiset de Frans et d’Engleis.
This Osbert was Thomas à Becket’s kinsman and first employer.
In 1141 the Empress addresses a writ to Osbert Octodenarius, as the Justiciar, according to Round’s conclusion, his name being followed by that of the Sheriff.
Eleven years before this, in 1130, the name of Gervase appears as Justiciar; it is in the very year of Henry’s Charter. Round connects this Gervase with Gervase of Cornhill without any reasonable doubt.
Lastly, we find, as stated above, Geoffrey de Mandeville appointed Justiciar by Charter of the Empress. He calls himself “Comes Essex et Justiciarius Londoniæ” in a document of 1142-43. It is therefore certain that this great Earl counted it among his chief honours to be the Justiciar of London. Considering the history of this lord, we may well understand the kind of justice which he would mete out to the unfortunate citizens.
(3) He granted that they should not plead without the City walls.
This gave the parties to a civil case the same kind of protection as the preceding clause gave to defendants in a criminal case. The aula regis travelled with the King. Plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses had to travel about with the King also, until they could get their case heard. It was a grievance exactly like that of the present day, when more cases are set down for the day than can possibly be heard, and plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses, and solicitors have to attend, day after day, until their case comes on; those who come up from the country have to live in hotels at great cost; those who live in London have to neglect their business at great loss. It is strange that we should now be submitting to a system quite as iniquitous and, one would say, as intolerable, as that from which London was relieved early in the second quarter of the twelfth century.
(4) The citizens were to be “free from Scot and Lot and Danegeld and all Murder.”
Scot and Lot must be taken together as meaning the levy of taxes by any kind of authority for public purposes. Every citizen had, for civic purposes, to pay his Scot and Lot, i.e. his rates, according to his means. Danegeld was a tax of so much for every hide of land (a hide being probably one hundred acres). It was originally imposed for the purpose of resisting, expelling, or buying off the Danes. It was abolished in the reign of Henry the Second. In any case of murder the hundred in which the murder took place had to pay a fine. This, in a populous city, where violence was rife and murders were frequent, might become a burden of a very oppressive kind. Exemption, therefore, was a privilege of some importance.
(5) None of the citizens should be called upon to wage battle.